We're less than a week away from the PlayStation Classic hitting stores, so Sony has shared some more details about the games that will accompany this miniature version of the famous original PlayStation. Through the official PlayStation blog for the United States, the company confirmed that 9 of the 20 games included with the console will be in PAL format , a decision that will cause problems for many players, especially those who played the NTSC version of the console back in the day.
What are the differences between NTSC and PAL?
When the console arrived in stores in 1994, Sony had to comply with regional restrictions limited by image refresh rate. While Europe used 50 Hz (PAL), the United States' NTSC standard displayed images at 60 Hz , meaning a faster and smoother refresh rate. This forced developers to adjust game playback to a slower speed to match the way televisions of the time displayed content.
As a result, consoles in the United States displayed much faster and smoother visuals, in some cases being a key experience for certain games. In the case of the PAL version, the game changed enormously, since the action took place slightly slower, something that naturally the players in Europe were unaware of. This problem was not new in the world of video games, since it had been dragging on for a long time with consoles like the Super Nintendo and Mega Drive (where Sonic ran like lightning in its NTSC version).
PAL versions at 50 Hz in 2018
Thanks to the advent of LCD screens, refresh rate limitations across different markets disappeared, so all consoles began offering the same refresh rates. Therefore, the information shared by Sony will upset many users, especially those who played NTSC versions, since, although 18 games will maintain the 60Hz frame rate, some of the 9 selected for the PAL version will be particularly affected by the change. These could include Tekken 3 , Destruction Derby , and Jumping Flash!, titles where speed plays a crucial role in each match. To give you an idea, the games coming to the PlayStation Classic in PAL versions are as follows:
- Battle Arena Toshiden
- Cool Boarders 2
- Destruction derby
- Grand Theft Auto
- Jump Flash!
- Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
- Resident Evil Director's Cut
- Tekken 3
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six
The other side of the coin is that European users will not notice changes compared to how they played before, although there will be other games that show up faster than normal. It's clear that the decisions surrounding the launch of the PlayStation Classic must have been more complicated than we thought, but it seems that users are not too happy with the results. If we add to that that all the games will be in English…